Familiar Equation
by Sister Coyote
Summary: Brother hurt often, which made it all the worse when he got stoic and guilty about Al's suffering. Ed, Al. Gen.


It was turning into a familiar equation: leads on the Stone meant danger; danger meant conflict; conflict meant fighting; fighting meant damage to Brother's automail; damage to Brother's automail meant Winry hitting Brother over the head with a wrench.

"What on earth did you DO to it do you know how much WORK I put in look at all the secondary nerve wires they're LOOSE what were you THINKING?"

Crash. Bang. Scuffle.

"It wasn't my fault! Blame it on the men who came after us with—OW!"

"And WHY were they coming after you? Huh? Because you were getting into TROUBLE, that's why."

Thud. Scrape. Thwack.

"They had a lead on the OW WINRY are you trying to KILL ME?"

"Maybe!"

Clink-clink-clink. Ping.

Silence.

"Can you fix it?"

"Of course I can fix it. Who do you think you're talking to? Hold still."

Click.

"OW!"

That would've been Ed swearing, Al knew, except that even Ed knew better than to swear in the Rockbell house. Pinako would, quite simply, have killed him.

Whenever they returned to Risembool, Winry took a look at Al, too. She checked his joints for wear, oiled the hinges at his knees and elbows, treated him with an anti-corrosive coating, and congratulated him darkly on not screwing himself up as Brother always did.

Al's checkup never hurt at all.

"Winry! You're a _monster_."

"Hold still!"

"Al! She's trying to _kill_ me!"

"Serves you right!"

Al edged backward. "I think I'm going to let you deal with this on your own," he said, and was met by Ed's howl of betrayal, which would have made him smile.

* * *

Granny Pinako left the actual automail maintenance to her granddaughter, but whenever the Elrics were in town she took the opportunity to check on Ed's physical well-being. Ed was openly mutinous to Winry, but never so to Pinako, which made sense because Pinako was as terrifying as she was nurturing. Much like Teacher, really.

She spread her hands on Ed's back with impersonal professionalism. "You've been doing your exercises," she said approvingly around the pipe clenched between her teeth. The smell of her tobacco was as much a part of home as Winry's glare, as the green hills of Risembool (even if Brother insisted that it wasn't really their home, not anymore).

"Yes," Ed said.

"Good. Any soreness here?" Pinako's hand slid down his back, along the right side.

"No."

"Here?" The other side, and Ed flinched, but said,

"No."

Al couldn't help it. "Brother—"

Ed gave him a wounded look, but said, "Okay, okay. A little."

Pinako clucked her tongue. "More balancing exercises, then. The third most common cause of automail failure—"

Al knew the lecture by heart. He'd repeated it to Ed more than once. The first most common cause of automail failure was simple rejection; the second was improper maintenance.

The third was the failure of the body itself to support the automail. Flesh wasn't meant to be bolted to steel, and muscles intended to hold up bone and skin didn't know what to do with metal. If Ed wasn't careful to train the muscles on one side of his body to account for the extra weight on the other side, his spine would grow in twisted by the forces of one heavy leg and an opposite heavy arm.

"Yes," Ed was saying, "I _am_ doing them."

Ed's body remained straight, unbent, but Al knew that the torque caused him some discomfort and a good deal of nuisance, even now, after years of getting used to it.

Pinako's pipe twitched between her teeth. "Be sure he is doing them," she said to Al.

* * *

The truth was that Al often felt bad for the sympathy he got from those who knew his plight. Sure, given the chance he'd trade hollow armor for living flesh in a heartbeat (so to speak). But everything he lacked was abstract, theoretical. He missed food, sleep, touch, but he didn't _suffer_ for them, because suffering required a certain minimum threshold of feeling. And he had some feeling—he could sense pressure, and had a basic kinesthetic awareness that allowed him to maneuver and even to practice complicated martial arts (though he rarely went so far as to explain that; even people who were largely okay with a seven-foot spiky armored man speaking in a boy's voice tended to be thrown off if the boy used words like 'kinesthetic')—but he didn't have enough feeling to hurt, at least not physically.

Brother hurt often, which made it all the worse when he got stoic and guilty about Al's suffering.

* * *

In the dormitory at night, Al could tell that Ed hadn't fallen asleep. He was breathing the quick breaths of worry, not the slow half-snoring cadence of sleep.

"Get some rest, Brother," Al said, drawing his blanket up. It didn't cover even half of him, but it was the thought that counted. Ed always made sure he had a blanket, even though they both knew he didn't need it.

"What about you?" In the dim light, Al could see that Ed had rolled onto his side, eyes wide and bright and angry in the darkness. "You don't get any rest at all."

"I don't need it," Al said, sensibly.

Ed exhaled noisily and flopped onto his back. "It's not fair."

Al thought a lot of things, but what he said out loud was, "Fair or not, we have to catch a train in four hours, and you'll be _so_ grumpy if you don't get any sleep, so you're not doing me any favors."

Ed snorted, but then exhaled and shut his eyes. Within minutes, he was snoring quietly, leaving Al alone with his thoughts.

"Good night, Brother," he said into the darkness, and drew his blanket up to the chingap of his helmet, and pretended to sleep.


End file.
